The 12-member supercommittee needs to find its $1.5 trillion in spending cuts from somewhere — and that means treading on the jurisdiction of some very powerful committee leaders who may not be happy to have ceded a significant amount of authority on perhaps the biggest spending cut bill in American history.

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POLITICO 44

There have been other specially created committees in recent years, dealing with everything from homeland security to global warming. As the heads of those special panels learned, turf matters. Some lawmakers wait decades to get a gavel, and when they get one, they protect it with all they've got.

The House and Senate Agriculture committees, for example, will want to defend mandatory conservation, energy and export programs tied to the farm bill. Transportation and Infrastructure-related panels are keeping close tabs on the multibillion-dollar highway trust fund that's up for reauthorization shortly. Defense authorizers won't want to submit to major cuts to the Pentagon budget. And so on.

Even committee heads who are on the supercommittee don't necessarily want the group of 12 to touch their turf. Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) of the House Ways and Means Committee, for instance, has said any talk of a major tax reform package should remain within his domain.

And then there are the appropriators, long known as some of the most powerful people on Capitol Hill.

Still reeling from more than $900 billion that the White House and Hill leaders yanked from their hands during last month's high-stakes negotiations to raise the debt limit, the people holding the purse strings on discretionary spending want their colleagues to butt out.

"You've got to believe that every major committee is nervous that it's core work is just going to be snatched away from it if they manage to reach some sort of grand deal," said Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "That's probably true of even Finance and Ways and Means even though their chairs are on the committee. They may be consulted, but they're not going to be able to shape things the way they normally shape things."

Granted, the existing committees can weigh in with their recommendations by Oct. 14. Still, it's the supercommittee that has the juice, with no defined jurisdictional limitations and plenty of freedom to propose whatever it wants by a Nov. 23 deadline.

Only then do the committee leaders and their panel members get to weigh in again, though at that point it's via up-or-down House and Senate votes. And if the supercommittee’s proposal is rejected, Congress would have to swallow across-the-board cuts that affect some of government’s most popular programs, like health care entitlements, homeland security and defense.

Readers' Comments (170)

Team Politico: "Congress might be headed for a super turf war.".......................Might?...."It's going to be challenging for us to come up with a number on our own," the Senate Democratic aide said. "We don't want to negotiate against ourselves." ..................Someone please help me. I can't stop laughing. Challenging? These fools can't produce a budget, let alone come up with a number for anything unrelated to increased spending.

At worst, they're not going to get as much of an INCREASE as they wanted. They speak a different language in Washington, where the meaning of words is changed to deceive the voters.

Here's an example: If you're expecting a 5% raise this year and you only get 2%. Out here in the real world, you got a 2% RAISE. In the fantasy world of Washington D.C., you got a 3% CUT.

That's what these so-called cuts in next year's budget are all about. They have built an automatic 8% annual increase in the budget. Some of the programs will only get 7% and they're whining over that. Time for a bunch of new people in Congress. If they can't even amke up a budget at all, it's time to get out of the way for someone who can.

It is hard to have any faith in the potential success of the Joint Select Committee. First, the committee has six Republicans and six Democrats, making committee passage difficult at best. Second, Republicans are refusing to consider new revenues, a condition sought by President Obama, the majority of Americans and S&P. Third, all Republican presidential candidates are showing their lack of rational business sense by objecting to even a 10 to 1 ratio of curbed spending to new revenues. (Only Sarah Palin has (surprisingly) shown good sense in advocating the elimination of all big corporate subsidies and successfully lobbied perks for millionaires and billionaires. She follows Obama in rightly saying we simply can't afford them.) The supercommittee will most likely fail and only succeed in giving some political cover to members of Congress not on the committee. ("What could I do? They had taken control of it out of my hands.") Democrats better feel compelled to insist on a balanced deal, and a 1 to 1 dollar cut for dollar of revenue raised is not balanced (because the entire first wave of deficit reduction consisted only of cuts). I expect the awful automatic cuts to be triggered by our predictably partisan and dysfunctional Congress.

Ornstein: ""But as a general matter, the unprecedented power this group of 12 has to get an up or down vote, unamended and without any of the normal legislative protections or tweaks that come from points of order or filibusters or the like, has to make all the major legislative committees feeling extremely uneasy." ......................Why? They voted for it. Oh, that's right. Its, "A few members of the House held them all hostage," crap. People like this never run out of excuses or other people to blame. Hell, they set it up that way. I hope they feel a lot worse than "extremely uneasy".

How about the Military Discharge Status Altering Scandal getting exposed?

We need an investigation.

I have nothing, personally, against my fellow Democrat, Bob Kerrey.

I even worked on his gubernatorial campaign in Nebraska while in high school.

And Mike Gibilisco is the thanks I get from Bob Kerrey.

How many of you puke military veterans were Dishonorably Discharged or received General Discharges but now have squeaky clean military records to use against the rest of us when competing for jobs in civilian life?

Hundreds?

Thousands of you?

Hundreds of thousands of you pukes?

How many serious crimes were committed by members of the US armed forces while they "served" their country, from rape to drug smuggling, to assault, to murder, and no criminal charges were ever brought despite the fact the military knew the crimes were committed?

Then the US military dumped these psychopathic criminals onto American streets without nay a word of warning where they could prey on unsuspecting, innocent American civilians.

I'm not referring to combat related stress discharges, here.

I'm referring to the status quo of the peace time US military in America.

Now I don't have the records of every service member, nor do I have the records of every service member I ever knew.

But I do know the stories of three would be career enlisted military men and how their less than exemplary military discharges were altered by former US Navy SEAL Bob Kerrey of Nebraska.

One is now dead, the other two are convicted felons in civilian life, with one of those serving time in a Nevada prison since Kerrey white washed their military discharges.

Of the two felons, both tried to become civil servant "heroes" after Kerrey altered their discharge papers.

Of those two, one was a Military Police Officer in the USAF who tried to become a civilian police officer in Omaha, Nebraska. He assaulted me while he was a civilian and a "police recruit" according to the arresting officers in my 2nd DUI some twenty plus years ago.

I was in police custody, my hands shackled behind my back, when this puke named Mike Gibilisco gave me a military police taught punch to the abdomen, a pure cheap shot since I was cooperative and had not ran my mouth nor had any knowledge of bad blood between us.

That was 100% Bob Kerrey's doing.

Because of that incident, which was handled in house by police with no complaint ever being filed and my conviction guaranteed by Gibilisco's testimony, he was not allowed to become an Omaha Police Division officer.

Allegedly, he is now a convicted felon himself after pulling a gun on his ex-wife.

Just the type of guy you want having the power and absolute control over you as a police officer???

Gibilisco's brother, Joe, retired as a Battalion Chief at Omaha fire recently and was one of several men who participated in wiretapping my telephones at the home of fire fighter John McDonnell of Omaha who lived next door to me.

Mike Gibilisco apologized to me several years later and I forgave him, but I didn't forget and won't remain silent.

He and Tony Salado were both allegedly discharged from the USAF for smuggling narcotics into the US on USAF aircraft out of Turkey.

Both were less than honorably discharged for their actions, neither charged with a crime, both were dumped back into civilian life in Omaha, and both became criminals afterward with no warning of the danger each posed to US civilians.

Salado moved to Nevada where his chemical dependency problem led him to a DUI related motor vehicle accident that sent him to prison. Who or how many people were hurt by his actions I don't know, but he's back in Omaha with his squeaky military record getting every ounce of privileged treatment from being a "proud' US military veteran who "served" his country.

The third guy I know was a lifer in the USMC. He's dead. Bob Kerrey altered his less than Honorable Discharge from the USMC as well. They found him dead in a storage garage either from suicide or drug overdose.

How many more of these scumbags have the US military dumped onto the streets of America with no warning to the American people of what they did while in the military?

First rule of Washington Politics is to delay, delay, delay. Second rule of Washington if there is a hot topic is to create a committee. If that does not work make another committee. Finally that should take a long time and the furor will die down. Voters have short memories. Also if 535 Congressmen cannot balance the budget what do you think 12 can? Besides me thinking this is a very bad idea I think it is bordering on usurping the vote I and others cast for our representative. This is just another farce and behind back door politics Obama promised would not happen. Can you remember one bill passed under Obama Administration that was Transparent? Hello, HC, Stimulus, Bailout? We still are reading the find print to see the actual cost.

At worst, they're not going to get as much of an INCREASE as they wanted. They speak a different language in Washington, where the meaning of words is changed to deceive the voters.

Here's an example: If you're expecting a 5% raise this year and you only get 2%. Out here in the real world, you got a 2% RAISE. In the fantasy world of Washington D.C., you got a 3% CUT.

That's what these so-called cuts in next year's budget are all about. They have built an automatic 8% annual increase in the budget. Some of the programs will only get 7% and they're whining over that. Time for a bunch of new people in Congress. If they can't even amke up a budget at all, it's time to get out of the way for someone who can.

So when the "unwashed masses" flooded the Congressional phone lines and inboxes with pleas NOT to vote for this ridiculous plan, they were just "ignorant tea people," right? I have no patience with their whining now. These people continually position themselves as the smartest people in the room, and then vote themselves into "unexpected" turns of events and unforeseen consequences the morning after. You made your bed--now ....

Re pasted comments. Seems can't sometimes post as Politico blocks comments with Pop-Ups not allowed. Anyone else see this as a problem?

First rule of Washington Politics is to delay, delay, delay. Second rule of Washington if there is a hot topic is to create a committee. If that does not work make another committee. Finally that should take a long time and the furor will die down. Voters have short memories. Also if 535 Congressmen cannot balance the budget what do you think 12 can? Besides me thinking this is a very bad idea I think it is bordering on usurping the vote I and others cast for our representative. This is just another farce and behind back door politics Obama promised would not happen. Can you remember one bill passed under Obama Administration that was Transparent? Hello, HC, Stimulus, Bailout? We still are reading the find print to see the actual cost.

It's wonder that America gets downgraded in the face of such pathetic incompetence and folly.

Please "Read" the statements and reports by "S & P" on "Reasons for Downgrade, Expectations for future" = Thanks.

Oh, unless you agree that "Tea-Party Brinksmanship-Folly, GOP incompetence in getting caucus members on board with facing truths about how Nations (versus individuals) get a downgrade and how Downgrades affect interest rates on credit cards etc.

Can anybody tell me how a free trade agreement with a third world country will create jobs in America?

Developing countries with growing economies have a shortage of basic goods and so they have unmet demands. One example:

“According to the Ohio Soybean Association, 55 percent of Ohio's agricultural export total comes from soybeans. In 2010, that added up to $1.5 billion. According to the association, if the trade agreements (Panama, South Korea and Colombia) are passed and implemented, this could mean a possible $3 billion in additional U.S. exports, leading to economic development and jobs.”

Actually it's a joke. A very bad joke. It was formed as a politically expedient punt - a Congressional mini-me to take the heat off in the face of a looming deadline.

So true. They are desperate to punt the issue past the 2012 election. They are willing to play games with our economy and credit ratings just to increase their chances of getting re-elected. Expect the other two rating agencies to downgrade the US rating by the end of the year.

The article doesn't mention it, but, just as a reminder, the reason for the spending cuts is that the US risks a further downgrade due to its massive debt. The creditworthiness of the US is dependent on whether or not it can honor the debt and interest on the debt to its creditors, including China, which has already weighed in to warn us in the US. Money owed with no proof of ability to repay it means no more money borrowed, only debts to repay.